(rants and observations on outsider culture, music & cinema in The Big Wet)

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

GODDAMN PIGEONS! (the continuing story of...)

So a few posts back, I mentioned that the pigeons that I have been waging an on-again-off-again war with over whose balcony they get to shit all over had INVADED MY APARTMENT and shat on my chairs and bed. That was on June 18th. Since that time, I have been in and out of the apartment and not monitoring developments on the balcony closely, but I have scared off pigeons at least once, and at that point all that I had to contend with was the usual crusty shitpiles they leave and maybe a twig that they'd experimentally placed down as an index of future plans. Which I really did mean to sweep up, you know?

Yesterday morning, I heard the telltale flutter of wings and that weird "I'm coming in for a landing" cooing sound they make, and - from my bed - grabbed my Indonesian rattle and reached over to the window and banged it a few times. Normally I can hear the pigeons fly away after I do this, and don't always get out of bed to investigate; but I did, slid the door open, saw that there was a pigeon, and went RAAAAUGHHH at it to make it fly away.

It didn't move. It tilted its head, affected a look of defiant, stupid innocence, and held its ground. That's when I realized that it was sitting on top of... a nest.

I went to my kitchen, grabbed the first thing that I didn't care much about throwing onto the balcony (a half-empty roll of packing tape), chucked at the bird, and it hopped aside...

To reveal two eggs.

Ferk.

I am now in a crisis of conscience, torn about what to do. Should I:

a) Surrender for yet another year, reconcile myself to my role as shit-scraper, and let them have yet another two goslings or pigeonlings (or whatever the fuck a baby pigeon is called) on my balcony? They're obviously never going to give up and go away, so scraping up their shit every month or so might be the easiest course of action to take, rather than prolonging this war.

b) Storm out onto the balcony, smash the eggs, destroy the nest, and really SHOW THESE BIRDS THAT I MEAN BUSINESS? I might even be able to kill the Mama, if she's determined to sit on her nest and guard the eggs. I don't want to do either, but if it means being pigeon-free - they're filthy birds, pests, and I don't want to surrender my balcony to them altogether, you know? It's nice to go out there on an evening, especially when it's not COVERED IN PIGEON SHIT.

c) Or shall I try something in-between? (I could try to scoop the nest into a box and leave it out there so the birds at least tend to shit in one place. Presumably toilet-training them would not be so easy to do, but I might at least localize the damage. Maybe they'll smother their own eggs under their shit, that way.

I mean, they're not mice, they're not bedbugs, they're not cockroaches - it's not 1058 Nelson all over. But... these birds are a real pain the ass!

About Me

Writer, aging punk, cinephile. Fan of the obscure and outside. ESL teacher, occasional used bookstore guy; zombie when the mood strikes me. Haven't been based in Vancouver for awhile now but "Alienated In The Metrotown Area" is an even worse blogname than I already have. And I still have ties to Maple Ridge (sigh).